


The Hands-off Approach

by Anonymous



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors
Genre: Co-Parenting, Dark Comedy, Gen, Sibling Rivalry, Superhuman Healing, The Emperor of Mankind's A+ Parenting, Violence as Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A darkly humorous fic running on the premise that since the Emperor and Malcador have no issue mindwiping Primarchs, even if Horus and Russ tried to kill each other at their first meeting they would've just had their memories altered.
Kudos: 19
Collections: PB Anon Meme - 2020





	The Hands-off Approach

"I saw you from your little perch up there," Russ grinned.

"It's a gallery," Horus drawled.

"Is that what they're called on Cthonia?"

"It's what they're called everywhere."

"Not on Fenris."

"That's because Fenris is," Horus started and then stopped. Patience, he told himself. Patience and kindness and maturity. He plastered on a smile and settled for: "Different."

Russ drew near him, sniffing the air.

"What?" Horus demanded.

"Do the men of Cthonia smell like women?" Russ asked.

"It is the scent of oil and lapping powder."

"We call it perfume on Fenris," Russ blithely said. "Only the women wear it." He looked at the man he was now supposed to call brother. "What?" he asked. "No correction? No response?"

He watched, as sure as only a man who had never lost a fight in his life could be, as Horus pulled something out from the folds of his thick perfumed robes. It was a small flask, about the same width as Russ' thumb, and it was half-full with clear liquid.

"What you are smelling is oil and lapping powder," Horus repeated. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he upended the contents of the flask over Russ' face.

Russ veered back, spitting, snarling, and hissing.

" _That_ is perfume," Horus said.

"I will kill you," Russ swore, "I will have your neck between my fangs by the end of the day!"

"Please try," Horus retorted, smiling a smile that was just begging to wiped off, "It saves me the trouble of finding some plausible reason to do the same."

Horus did not topple backwards with Russ barreled into him. He gave a grunt of exertion, the price of keeping upright, and bared his teeth in another, truer, smile.

"That's more like it," the Ganger Lord of Cthonia said.

Russ tried to shove him back, only for both wrists to be caught. Horus' grip was tighter than any snare and his expression remained grimly amused. This infuriated Russ and he leaned his head back, aiming to knock both their skulls together, but Horus pre-empted him here too, using his own head as a battering ram before Russ could do the same.

With a feral snarl, Russ bit into his brother's scalp. Horus dug his nails into Russ' wrists. Both of them broke skin and came away bloodied for their efforts. Right as Russ was determined to gnaw through the other's skull just to sink his teeth into grey matter, Horus released his wrists, bringing his right hand out for a hook. Russ was forced to pull back in the act of dodging.

Their physiology being what it was meant that both sets of wounds were already scabbing over, though the bright red lingered.

"Having a taste of your mother?" Horus taunted.

"At least I didn't bleed my own ass," Russ snarled.

They met a second time and exchanged another, even _less_ measured, set of blows. Russ risked getting his head kicked off in order to grab ahold of his brother's knee. He pulled like his life depended on it (which, judging by the speed and angle of Horus' knee, was an apt description) and managed to send both of them toppling. Curses in the tongues of their respective homeworlds soon followed.

It was a fight, there was no doubt about it. It was a knock-down dragged-out _fight_ that got the blood pumping. Russ ripped the upper half of Horus' ear off and was rewarded with three fingers in his left eye. Horus punched him in the solar plexus and then trachea while Russ elbowed him in the groin. In the face of the horrific amount of damage both combatants were sustaining, an already foreign sensation made all the stranger by the speed which their bodies were patching themselves up, both of them were determined to not only come out the clear and definite winner, but to accomplish said feat without breaking a sweat.

"What is that supposed to be?" Horus sneered as Russ pressed his thumbs deep into his collarbone, "A Fenrisian lullaby?" Then he spat in Russ' face, temporarily blinding and burning him with their unique brand of acid, before retaliating with an uppercut.

"Amateur," Russ countered as his own nails managed to reach the bone at the center of Horus' wrist, "Any woman of Fenris can spit farther than that!"

The colourful swears and rancid slurs continued.

*

"I really think you should intervene," Malcador said, as the Primarchs' fisticuffs entered its eighth grueling hour.

The Emperor was engrossed in a series of dataslates. He looked up.

"What for?" he asked.

"For the sake of your sons," Malcador stressed, "Who may very well kill each other."

"You worry too much," the Emperor chuckled. "A little exercise does wonders for the mind."

"They've each bled out five times over."

"Boys will be boys."

Malcador tore his eyes from the carnage, fixing his lord and master with a hooded look. "Which is why they should have been girls," he stressed. "Nevermind reclaiming all twenty, it'll be a wonder if the third one found doesn't try to subjugate the Throneworld!"

"My friend, you are wise beyond belief," the Emperor said.

"Then would it inconvenience you so to _heed_ some of my wisdom?" Malcador asked, though he had long known it to be a lost cause.

"But I remain a warrior at my core. So of course it follows that my sons are warriors too."

As if heeding their father's wishes, both Primarchs abruptly fell to the blood-splattered floor. Even from their spot in the gallery sixty metres up, the mixture of Cthonic and Fenrisian curses could be heard, continued despite the momentary ceasefire. Malcador grimaced at the sound.

"See?" Emperor said. "Now they'll be the best of friends, the closest of brothers, the truest of..." he trailed off as his sons, evidently not having heard the proclamation, decided the momentary lapse in combat was sufficient and were once more lashing out with all manner of kicks and punches.

"You were saying?" Malcador asked.

The Emperor returned to his dataslates. "Give them some time," he insisted. "They'll work it out. And if not," he shrugged, "There's eighteen more. Surely some of them will get along."

Then he saw Malcador was leaving and frowned.

"Don't interrupt them."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Then where are you going?"

"To get a drink." He'd heard the Fenrisians had brewed some stomach-churning spirits. Stomach-churning was exactly what he needed, considering their primary candidates for waging war against the galaxy were presently waging war against one another.

"I'll have a glass of whatever you're having," the Emperor said. He made the mistake of looking past his dataslates at his viciously-bloodied children. "Make that two glasses."


End file.
